Star-base Defenses: Do they make any sense?

I think it's terrible that bases don't fight alongside stacked ships. Investing enough money in a base to make it independent is absurdly hard, and having a fleet on the base square is no different than having it anywhere else inside the area of effect.

Place a full fleet in the same square as the starbase, and they should get attacked first.

There is no way to get them to work with the starbase, unfortunately.

Starbase weapons/defenses are still worthwhile sometimes, it depends on the stage of the game.

To the best of my knowledge, there's no way a starbase can survive the first round against a typical fleet once you get to the midgame. It would require a fix to the game mechanics (like being able to form fleets that include ships and a starbase) or maybe a huge increase in starbase hitpoints to make fortifying starbases worthwhile. I don't think 1.2 is going to change much, although now you kill one ship in the attacking fleet, I guess.

The solution is to
(1) don't harden your starbases; the saved constructors can build replacements when needed
(2) defend the space around your starbases; the only sure way to keep starbases alive is to keep enemy fleets out of range
(3) be careful where you build starbases; expect losses in contested areas
(4) I *think* that if a tile that has a fleet and a starbase on it is attacked, the defender will be the "strongest" unit, just like the strongest fleet is chosen to defend when a tile that contains multiple fleets is attacked. So if you have a fleet in the square and an unupgraded starbase, maybe the enemy will attack the fleet? Or will they target the starbase first regardless? I'm not sure, but in 1.2 we won't be penalized for being the defender, so it's worth looking into. I remember reading something about this on the forums awhile ago.

If the starbase got no weapons, the fleet within the same square is attacked first, always. this is why i never even research those starbase defense technologies.

I never tried this, but I thought the starbase defenses might be good for raising your military rating as you can get 7 power of Beam for one cargo hull's worth of resources.

Well on difficulty modes below tough starbase defenses are not a bad investment, since it will take some time for the ai to be able to build fleets that can even scratch fully equipped starbases, in this cases starbeses can defend them selfs for quite a long time autonomously. However on modes above tough starbase defenses are plain useless. At the time you've upgraded the base the ai already possesses ships that are more powerful.

I defend starbases by placing several attack ships and a sensor ship over the starbase. This way I recongnise attackers early enough to send my ships out and destroy the agressor.

I've found that even basic starbase defenses, which only cost one or two constructors, can be a great help in warding off cherry pickers. While before a tiny hull with one attack could destroy the base, now they need a significant fleet to destroy it without heavy losses.

Throwing on Battle Stations, the upgrade that gives +7 beam attack, and maybe even some defenses is a wise investment ... so long as the station has a chance of being attacked. If it's beyond the reach of a planet within one turn, for instance, or far on your frontier, it's a great help. If it's safely tucked behind your battle lines, it's probably not worth it.

i found if you research star base defenses for the base soon enough, (3 stages i believe) they come in handy. In my last game i had my bases up to lvl 2 defenses and they would survive a few attacks for the enemy medium and large ship fleets, up to seven ships at times, but a few fleets would always wipe it out . Not sure how starbases recover hp yet, havent seen it posted either, anyhow , where was i. those bases i had had full wpns and defenses and would survive bout 2 to 3 fleets before succuming to the onslaught. Therefore in certain games i believe starbase defenses are worth it. also i was playing on a tough, gigantic? map. Also very slow tech research so the ai wasnt always up in tech with me cept maybe 2 ai enemies.

and like it was posted earlier, its very expensive to build up those starbases to beable to defend itself. takes a ton of construction ships to build it to a stand alone defended base, but only a few fleets that were strong enought to hurt it could kill it. Most fleets did 0 damage to my starbases most of the times.

Are your really strongly defended starbases also equipped with decent weaponry? They say the best defense is a strong offense, and it really helps to destroy those enemy ships instead of giving them free reign to put holes in your armor, no matter how thick it is.

A fully outfitted starbase with max attack and defense is extremely potent. It might not survive a powerful fleet but there is no single mid-game ship that can take it out.

All great comments....everyone! I especially like the idea of putting a sensor ship in the mix. I can literally use every single comment you made to help me play a better game. You all are awesome.

Cheers,

Helo

I have had heavily armed starbases and during wars the AI sends fleet after fleet against them to be destroyed. I was playing the Drath and had a maxed out military resource so the defenses were more then doubled. I was playing on suicidal level, 1.11 and the miltary ratings of my enemy was 200+ compared to my 30 something. They also had a large weapon tech advantage. The starbases provided a wall for the AI to bang there heads on, so starbase defenses r well worth researching given the right circumstances. The AI seem to give your starbases a high attack priority.

At least upgrade your resource starbases. They are far less expendable in most cases, and are usually far beyodn the range of your planets.

Another idea is to build up a cache of constructors on a planet, then send them all to the same tile on one turn and construct a fully-upgraded starbase.

i find starbase defences to be a massive waste of money. to get some kind of real defence the outlay in money, time and production is far to prohibitive, esspecially when some chump fleet worth a pinch of the resources that you have pumped into your starbase smashes the hell out of your starbase ..... use your resources better and build more ships (i like the idea of having a stockpile of constructors to quickly replace destroyed starbases)